Big-time going way back

Steve Lopez is a die-hard San Francisco 49ers fan, so he'll be rooting for second-year quarterback sensation Colin Kaepernick on Super Bowl Sunday.

Stephen Roberson

Steve Lopez is a die-hard San Francisco 49ers fan, so he'll be rooting for second-year quarterback sensation Colin Kaepernick on Super Bowl Sunday.

It wasn't that long ago, however, that the former West High football coach was plotting ways to beat Kaepernick, the starting quarterback at Turlock-Pitman in 2004 and '05.

Lopez succeeded ... twice.

In fact, the Wolf Pack ended Pitman's season in 2004 in the first round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I playoffs with a 35-21 victory. One year later, West ended Kaepernick's high school football career in the section quarterfinals.

With West leading by less than a touchdown late in the game, Kaepernick threw a pass into the end zone that, if completed, would have won the game. Wolf Pack junior safety Bryan Tilos arrived just in time to knock the pass down.

The Wolf Pack advanced to the semifinals, beating St. Mary's 42-14 before losing to Grass Valley-Nevada Union in the finals. Kaepernick moved on to basketball season, where he led the team in scoring with 15.4 points per game and to the baseball team in the spring.

"They really felt like that was their year," Lopez said. "I went to an all-star game a couple years later, and there was a Pitman parent there. She asked me where I coached, and when I told her West, she said, 'Oh, you devastated us.'

"After that she wouldn't talk to me."

Pitman reached the quarterfinal date with West by beating Lincoln 35-14 in the first round. Kaepernick was 8 for 17 for 166 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions. It was Pitman's first playoff victory. It also was the last game for former Lincoln head coach Mike Byerly.

"The losses that we had at Lincoln were normally pretty tight, but that particular loss was probably the worst of my coaching career," Byerly said.

While Kaepernick, at that point, appeared headed for a baseball career, Byerly could see the potential in the lanky kid with a cannon for a right arm.

"I found it interesting because a lot of people were saying at the time he couldn't play college ball because he came from a Wing-T offense, but I really thought he had the tools if he fit into the right scheme," Byerly said.

Byerly wasn't in the majority. Most, Lopez included, didn't see Kaepernick - listed at 6-foot-5 and 190 pounds - becoming a college football star. He was a dominant pitcher with a fastball clocked in the low 90-mph range who played for the Milwaukee Brewers Grey squad in the 2005 area code games. He was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 2009 while attending Nevada.

Also, much of Kaepernick's success with both Nevada and the 49ers has come as a running threat. In San Francisco's 45-31 divisional round win over the Green Bay Packers three weeks ago, he rushed for 181 yards, an NFL single-game record for a quarterback. At Pitman, he didn't run. During his junior and senior seasons, he finished with a combined minus-2 yards rushing.

"No way I thought he'd do what he's done," Lopez said. "I didn't even think he'd go into college football. I talked to the guy who signed him at Nevada. When he saw him play basketball they knew he was an exceptional athlete. That's why they signed him."